Venting about Ticketmaster, Non-Free Software, and societal norms

General Privacy & Security
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This is a rant, and I don’t have any other places to give it. Please feel free to ignore me yelling in to the wind here :).

I went to a concert the other night and it was fantastic.
Like most concerts, Ticketmaster is the only option for getting tickets, so I reluctantly paid for my ticket, then paid again for the convenience of paying (“convenience fees”).

Ticketmaster used to email you with a QR code that was essentially your “ticket”. Now they require an Android/iOS app that I imagine just displays QR codes since a PDF just isn’t good enough nowadays.

The last show I went to like this, I just went to Will Call, got a physical ticket, and used that. Easy enough.
At this venue, the experience was a bit different and the reason I felt the need to vent.

I purchased a VIP pass and the person at Will Call initially told me they can’t help with that and to go wait in line.
This was roughly the conversation with the guy scanning the tickets at the front of the line:

Me: “Hi, I don’t have an actual ticket, but I have my Id and emails from Ticketmaster confirming my ticket, the last time…”
Guy: “You need the Ticketmaster app. I just need to scan something.”
Me: “I can’t run the app since I don’t have an Apple or Android phone. My phone runs Linux.”
Guy: “What’s LInux? Why can’t you use the LInux version of the app?” (he pronounced it wrong immediately)
Me: “It’s a different operating system. Ticketmaster doesn’t make an app for this.”
Guy: “Why does your phone suck?”
Me: “It doesn’t suck, I can do a lot on this that other devices cannot.”
Guy: “Well if it can’t run the app so I can scan the code, you can’t get in. So your phone must suck.”

At this point, I sprinted back to Will Call and talked to them. This time he printed a ticket for me.
Meanwhile, I was frantically installing the Ticketmaster app in Waydroid while my battery was dwindling to < 5%.
I made it back and the guy and some other person were arguing a little and decided to let me in with the paper ticket only, VIP pass included. I guess the other person had some sympathy for me.
While I walked through, the first guy mentioned, “Next time just give some money to Steve Jobs.”

My phone died somewhere at this point so the app would have been a no-go anyways :).

But hey, the show was great and I did not let this experience sour the evening.

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I wonder why. (sarcasm)

Various versions of “ticketmaster” Android apps: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

The iOS app.

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I just heard on the news that “intuit dome” in LA takes it a step further and rquires registering a face photograph which is needed even to get food. Intuit Dome’s facial recognition cameras run the show | KCRW Features Intuit Dome leaning on facial authentication for ticketing and concession transactions - Stadium Tech Report The Dome Is Watching You - The Atlantic

Three links above. (Trying to avoid onebox.)

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I think you could actually recategorize this topic as Privacy and Security.

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Let’s do a flash-mob … 50 people with Librem 5 or Pinephone want to access the same concert without these smartphone apps (nobody is speaking about Waydroid). :grin:

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My favorite punk venues are still cash at the door.:-b
OTOH, I’ve seen a few in the big city going towards etickets. Time to talk to the DIY music crowd about DIY software/hosting.

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TicketBastard :tm: charging unreasonable “convenience” fees and being a general pain in the neck?! You don’t say. :laughing:

In all seriousness, my wife has run into similar situations and she just tells them she doesn’t own a mobile phone, which is factually true. A trip to will call is required and it’s usually not a big deal. She used to print out the tickets via email, but iirc, TicketBastard :tm: is making it harder or impossible to even do that.

I think one of the most effective strategies to complain is to play the cripple card, tell them their policy is “hurting the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our community” and demand to speak to a manager or higher up, talk about civil right lawsuits, etc.

The privacy angle is probably going to fall on deaf ears.

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Nothing to say here, because i never used Tickermaster for anything, however i heared that Tickmaster is monopolio

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You’ve heard correctly.

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Anyone with DIY values do not need that discussion.

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Indeed, there are several possibilities here:

  1. doesn’t own a mobile phone
  2. does own a mobile phone but it’s not a smartphone i.e. just makes frigging phone calls - no camera, no apps, no internet
  3. does own a smartphone but it runs Linux

Obviously the third possibility is the least helpful when arguing with some lamer at the venue. Eyes will glaze over.

You could have expressed that more delicately but I think that this is a genuine reason for the second possibility e.g. for older people who are experiencing dexterity or cognitive issues (or both).

At the end of the day though, a monopoly means that they will impose unreasonable conditions and there may be limited recourse.

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You’re speaking about reverse engineered phones where PostmarketOS can run somehow? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
So you forgot 3 points:
4. You have a smartphone, it runs Android or iOS, but it is outdated and cannot run the app or cannot run it securely (no updates).
5. Smartphones that run other proprietary operating systems as Windows.
6. Pocket computer that can run any available system - as long as it is no Android (which I guess, could be made with some effort).

So even smartphone users can be excluded!

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Last few times I went to concert events, a friend with an iPhone/Android bought multiple tickets on Ticketmaster, got me in with it, and I reimbursed them.

Were I on my own, I assumed I would either use Waydroid or more likely not go to these venues at all.

It’s definitely extremely stupid. I mean, extremely stupid. TSA has let me fly across the USA with a Librem 5 and PDF, where we pretend to be all afraid about plane hijackings, but going to have my eardrums permanently damaged by some kiddos with electric guitars and speakers has to be an “extremely secure” animated ticket that can only be rendered by secret proprietary technology.

Then again, most recently the airlines changed. It got really creepy. To get on the plane instead of scanning the boarding pass, they told everyone to stare at a phone style handset on a mount and they said the camera would “know who everyone was” for boarding the airline. I stood in front of it as a joke, knowing I didn’t have the airline app (my phone is a Librem 5) and so I had never uploaded my face for them.

Then their computer said it recognized me anyway and they told me to board without scanning my paper boarding pass.

So, evidently, in a manner that isn’t clearly telegraphed to the people, the process of entering the airport and walking through airport security checkpoints is scanning our faces and putting them in a database now. I mean I guess they were already doing it, but now it’s certainly more obvious.

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Airports and the rest. Even supposedly democratic societies are dripping with surveillance cameras. Your face is everywhere. It’s probably also in the system already from both your passport and your drivers licence. And (country specific) who knows how much other photo id.

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That’s a disturbing development. I always opt out of any biometric scanning, that includes the mmWave bodyscanners. Sounds like it’s being done without consent which means a lawsuit must be filed to force transparency.

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They manufacture consent. There was a random sign off to the side that was hard to see when passing through airport security that said to bother an agent if you desired to opt out of face scanning. I didn’t think about it because there wasn’t a time when they said, “we are scanning your face now,” and people going through airport security are focused on going through airport security. The advice I was given years ago is to avoid drawing attention to oneself, to avoid being pulled aside by TSA and thus missing flights or losing a lot of time.

So I doubt I have any grounds to lawsuit them, because they can say they manufactured consent because I didn’t protest when they had a sign off to the side of the airport security section with a note on how you can hassle their humans to opt out of something even though its a bit vague what you’re opting out of at that point if it’s your first time flying in the new system.

Given that I never actually saw them scan my face, I assume they are taking the full-body scan that they already do (when you put all your phone and carry-ons on a tray and are without them) and presumably are using that full scan to send the facial geometry of the person to the specific airline company for use with boarding.

Airport security was never opt out, so I assume if you hassle their humans per the sign and tell TSA you want to opt out of forwarding your facial geometry to the airline, then once TSA finishes panicking and inevitably patting you down in a private room, and you get back on your way, surely the US Govt still will have your entire full body geometry in their DB and the only difference is the airline company not getting their copy… I’m guessing.

But I mean, I’m guessing that’s how it works, which is probably what they want, so that it’s easier to manufacture consent for something - something that you don’t quite know what it is.

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Passive public surveillance isn’t much of a problem. The problem is that our rights are gradually taken away.

Surveillance in private domain is a problem. Things like amazon alexa listening to your voice, and hardware backdoors, and OS backdoors. That can be considered digital trespass.

Microsoft windows tried many times to take screenshots of user computers regularly. Mac OS isn’t far behind windows in spying. Android and iOS were trying to report your location to government regularly.

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I see. I just crossed a land border back into the USA, and it had been a few years. Now half of the re-entry lanes for pedestrian crossing utilize facial biometric scanning. Many sheep lined up for those. I went to a lane where manual verification of my passport was done by a border agent. He still asked me two times to take a picture, because they have little cameras installed at each station regardless. I declined each time. Meanwhile millions pour in totally unvetted. It’s a farce.

I have heard similar claims that facial recognition is being done in airports on people waiting in line to cross the TSA checkpoint, but I don’t have any sources or evidence I can link to which support that.

I think there are only two paths forward.

  • Low trust societies with ubiquitous domestic surveillance.
  • High trust societies without any need for domestic surveillance because they kicked all the low trust people out.

I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t have it both ways.

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If you don’t define trust, it can be co-opted by the rulers.

Instead of trust, use the word, violence. Kick violent people out, or kill them all. No prisoners.

Define violence. Murder, rape, theft, trespass, willful deception, coercion, and assault.

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In regard to the TSA and the face scans at US airports: Currently the TSA is matching your face to the face pictured on your government issued ID ( a US drivers license photo or a passport photo; you’ve already agreed to have that picture used for identification in an analog or digital manner). In their opinion, this is better than having a human agent verify that the person’s ID matches their face and that the ID is authentic. To be clear, ahead of your flight they know who is getting on and what they look like — the point of the scan at the airport is to make sure only those people are allowed on the plane. The TSA is not (currently) approved to store any biometric data from the scan at the airport (although the DHS can temporarily store the information for testing/evaluation purposes).

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